The Sun. — London, England, 1818-10-29 00:00:00

EtEDERA AFRICANA. [Nu. X.] renewal of the war between England and France, in May, I SO3, was in its immediate, as \veil as in its ulterior effects, an event of a strik ingly f)V ident aspect in regard to the African race, It was to the French army of Hayti and i , s sable enemies, like the returning of the waters tit the Red Sea between the Egyptian Host and the Israelites. To the one it was signal and coin j.lete rie,rrnetion, io the other equally complete. al , d, I trust, final deliverance. True it i, that the blacks teunited to revenge the hot ible perfidies and cruelties of Rochatn hvaii, and the white colonists were already victo rons. 'I hat General had sustained successive defeats, and been obliged to abandon the whole interior of the island, with most of the towns uko on the coast, and to shut himself up, with a clef eted sickly remnant of his late powerful army, within the fortifications of Cape Frangois, where he vas c losely besieged by Dessalines. The French garrisons could only hope at best to main tain their defensive position till the arrival of .the,- expected reinfrircensents ; but this, from the strength of their Works, 810 the want under .which their brave enemies laboisred of proper ar tillery and other besieging Implements , as well as of military science, there was great probabi lity of their being able to effect. Meantime the Chief Consul was straining every nerve to pre pare the means of speedily retrieving his disgrace, and wreaking his furious revenge•upon the unfor tunate Haytians. His Generals had represented to him the inefficiency of the system he had hi therto pursued, that of feeding his army by suc cessive reinforcements upon a moderate scale, and the necessity of sending a large imposing force at once, which might act on all points simulta neously, and overu helm the Insurgents by com bined movements, before the vigour and health of the newly arrived Europeans were impaired by the climate ; and Napoleon had apparently adopt ed.their advice. He was collecting a large army at different points, and preparing tbe means of transporting it to St. Domingo ; though, to de ceive his own soldiers, he pretended that its des tination was to Louisiana. Beyond doubt, his ruthless perseverance and unlimited means would have put to a fearful ha zard the existence of the Haytian people. I say their existence, for as to reducing them to slavery t s,sitt, it was no longer regarded. as a practicable object. Their extermination appeared, from the latt , r measures of Rochambeau, to be his delibe rate purpose; and it has without scruple been avowed and recommended by some of his colo tlinl partisans, as what ought to ,be the object of the war. Wl4!ther that execrable end was fully attains ble, ant world have been relentlessly pursued or riot, it is certain that the recommencement of our hostilities was a most critical deliverance for Hayti. At the lowest estimate that can possibly be formed of the slaughter and destruction that most otherwise have followed, even without an extevoinatory purpose, a hundred thousand of the surviving black and coloured itiliabitauts,men, women, and children, would have miserably pe rished, bad the peace of Amiens lasted another year. The chastisement of their merciless enemies was an effect not less striking. The barbarities that had been perpetrated by the latter were hardly more beyond the range of modern precedent than the punishment that speedily ensued. The Greek and Latin poets have drawn terrible pictures of the sufferings they feigned to have been inflicted by the anger of the Gods ; but I recollect none that would rival a true history of the strange and multiplied calamities that overwhelmed the French army of St. Domingo, and the white colonists who had abetted its crimes. Happy,, compara tively, were the few who escaped from pestilence and famine, and the sword, by surrendering themselves prisoners to our blockading squadrons, though many of them sustained by it twelve years imprisonment in British gaols.—l will abstain front pointing out, in dreadful details, the reta liation that awaited the rest, and the crimes that provoked it. They belong to that impressive his tory of the ways of Providence in Hayti, which I have for the present declined. My immediate business is with the more general case of France herself, the retributory justice of which depends for its illustration on no doubtful or disputed facts, hut on such only as are well known throughout the civilized world. France relapsed, as I have show), during the brief Peace of Amiens, into all her former oppres sions of the African race, and added to them ag gravations, for which there was no room before, by open apostacy, coupled with the foulest na tional ingratitude and perfidy towards her black subjects in the Antilles. And what immediately ensued ? A new war that was to consummate the ruin of her army in St. Domingo, that was to rob her again, during twelve years, of all the colonies for the sake of which she had sinned so deeply. A war that was to give up the youth of France by hundreds of thousands to .various kinds of misery and death ; drenching with their blood every,soil, from the extreme south of Europe to the frozen regions of the north ; and covering ,with their unburied remains the long dismal line of their wintry retreat from Moscow to Poland. A war that, after producing a Leipsic and a Wa terloo, was to end at the gates of Paris ; and leave France despoiled of all her conquests, the captive, instead of the mistress of Europe ; what is still more striking, a war, the scourge of which ,was not finally to cease till France should have re tracted her affront to Heaven by a new abolition of the Slave Trade ! ! None, however, of these many indications of a Providential scheme, whether found in the case of France or of other countries, is more remarkable than.the facts which I have still to notice. The peace of Europe seemed, in May, 1814, to „be durably restored. The Treaty of Paris of that due had apparently provided well for the repose of Frrioce awl of the European countries that had been so long vexed by her arms ; but the lute rt:scs of Africa were abandoned. Five years were .rxpresOy &lowed for the revival and prosecution by France of a trade, the iniquity of which was by Lite same Treaty avowed. The pacification, t h e refore, was tinsonnd • and transient. it was not ratified by Heaven. The contracting parties, however, were not in equal fault, or at least did not long remain so, and Providence soon wonder fully dealt with them according to their respective deserts. England made a noble and generous stand for Africa in the Congress of Vienna ; Rus• sia, Austria, and Prussia cordially supported her in it. Their reward was Waterloo ; and a second peace at the gates of Paris, far' better, because tar safer than the first. F ra nce, on the other hand, was obdurate ; and the same events, pre ceded by another usurpation and another ciiol war, cli:istised her crime. It may be objected, perhaps, that the British Government was a passive accomplice in this new provocation, or was negatively at least im plicated in the guilt ; because it lost the op portunity of prescribing, as a condition of peace to a vanquished enemy, the renunciation_ of the Slave Trade. It, however, the omission was culpable in a !Aral view, the fault had much extenuation ; because the momentous, urgent, anti vital interests of the whole civilised world seemed tar. demand, at that critical conjuncture, an exclusive - attention to the safety of Eng land and Europe. Snpposing that the abo lition ought, nevertheless, to have been made. a condition, sins qud non, of any arrangement with France, the duty at least was not at the mo ment so clear as to make the breach of it inex-, cusable. Sure I am, and it is due to the accom plished Statesman who *as our negociator to say so, that the most distinguished friends of Africa were not prepared, at that awful crisis, to maintain that such a condition ought to be pre scribed. When a moral duty is clear, policy should not be heard for a moment against it.; but it, a prudential view, it.might well be doubted, whether the cause of Africa could have been effectually served by compelling France to yield a federal re nunciation of the Slave Trade, at the .point of the sword. Tt is also to be questioned whether our Allies would have been disposed to concur with us in such compulsion. But if Great Britain culpably forgot her duty at Chatillon or Paris, she made ample reparation for the fault at Vienna ; and that in a way peculiarly acceptable to Heaven ; because the unanimous wishes of the British people were loudly express ed for the generous and disinterested measures their Government adopted on behalf of their Afri can brethren. It was a truly national sacrifice on the altar of justice tfrid of mercy. Our attempts to obtain at the Congress a general abolition of the Slave Trade were as strenuous as if the dearest interests of Great Britain ' herself,. instead of Africa, had depended on our success. No effort was spared ; no reasonable sacrifice of national objects was refused ; and all that the most zealous and able negociation could possibly effect was ac complished. Much was actually conceded by par ticular Powers ; and the ever-memorable declara tion of Vienna, obtained by our Minister, was a homage of assembled Monarchs to the sacred prin ciples of justice and humanity, glorious to its authors, and of inestimable value, J trust, in its 'Wore consequences, to the great African cause. But three nations still, unhappily, stood out, great measure, against the solicitations of Eng, land, the suggestions of cooscience, and the re cognised laws of God; and of these three France was clearly the most highly criminal in her dissent. She was so, because she was the most enlightened of the three, and , professed the most liberal prin ciples ; and also because with her there was no immediate sacrifice to be made ; for she had no existin► Slave Trade to renounce ; because her resumption of the practice was a relapse into ac knowledged and repudiated guilt ; because she had not equal temp . a dons with Spain, much less with the Sovereign of Brazil, to extenuate her obdu racy. A still greater aggravation of her offence was in the guilty object and motive of it. She in sisted on retaining the Slave Trade for five years, because site was bent on making new efforts to restore and extend that cruel colonial slavery which she had herself solemnly abolished, and " to put humanity to the fearful cost of a new revolu tion in Hayti." Napoleon, whose hypocritical words I here again quote, would perl►tips himself have started at such a project, if lie had foreseen the horrible consequences of his expedition of 1802 ; but the Ministers of Louis XVI I 1., with the history of those horrors before their eyes, were resolved on their renewal and completion. They designed to cajole and corrupt the Ha miss Chiefs if possible ; but if, from the effects of Napoleon's pet idy, that game could not again be played, their ulterior purpose was to bend the unfortunate people again to the dreadful yoke of private slavery by force of arms ; and, if that could not be ac complished, to destroy them by an exterminatory war. It was cousidered, therefore, that without the Slave Trade for a limited term at least, St. Domingo, though conquered, might he useless ; because the black population, already deplorably. reduced by long Cilia sanguinary wars, as well as numerous massacres, would probably he much further reduced, or nearly annihilated during the impending contest, and scarcely any hands might be lett for the culture of the soil. That such should be the views of the Govern ment of France, under her lawful and amiable So vereign, may seem strange enough, especially as he had been trained in the school of adversity, had himself been a victim of oppression, and had recently been restored to the throne of his ances tors by means that strongly marked the indigna tion of Providence against national violence and wrong. But the French Court was unfortunately thronged with men whose private interests and prejudices made them the worst advisers that could possibly be found on African and West In dian affairs. They abused, no doubt, the ear of their. well-meaning Sovereign, by the same so phisms, and the same gross perversions of fact, by which they have laboured too successfully to de ceive the French people, as to the true nature of colonial slavery, anti the causes of the revolution in Hayti ; and thereby concealed from his equi table mind the extreme necessity which justified a much injured people in renouncing their alle giance to France. To what an extent the King must have been misled, both as to his duties and interests, was manifest to all who knew the true merit; of the case, when they found thitt X4l. Mau lonet, that ancient co►onial administrator and champion of slavery, was :appointed Minister of the Colonies and Marine. A choice more revolt- ing to the oppressed negroes and their friends, could not pos s ibly have been made. He is gone to his accout►t ; but the deep interests of huma nity demand that 'his memory should not be •pared. He was one of the chief authors of all the miseries of Hayti ; for he abused his talents, and his knowledge of colonial affairs, to impress, under the mask of candour and humanity, views the most false, insidious, and mischievous, that any apologist of the colonial system, and of the Slave Trade, had ever conceived to impose on the public of France. In the introductory chapter of the 4th volume of his Memoirs, or Notes on the Colonies, published at Paris preparatory to Le clerc's expedition in 1802, may be found the de velopment and the defence of that fraudulent and detestable policy which Napoleon meant to pur sue; a policy which cost to the poor Haytians rivers of blood, and to France unspeakable guilt, as well as the loss of her most valuable co• lony. 1 wish not to lessen the weight of any such apo logy as • may be found in the plausibility of bad advice, or in the difficulties of an arduous situa tion, the Res dura, et regni novitas," :or the conduct of the restored Monarch. I know that extensive and powerful interests in France pleaded, With an importunity hard to be resisted, for some attempt to restore the ruined fortunes of the planters of St. Domingo; many of whom had been real, and many more ostensible sufferers in the Royal Cause. But, at the same time, I must be faithful to the sacred task I have undertaken ; arid must not, therefore, seem to admit that Louis XVIII. in refusing to abolish the Slave Trade, after his first restoration, and in meditating a coucter revolution in Hayti, did not personally, and most justly, incur the displeasure of Heaven. He had been too long in England not to have ob tained some general knowledge of the enormities of the trade, and the nature of the Haytian case. Besides, he avowed, in the first Treaty of Paris, that the Slave Trade is " repugnant to the prin ciples of natural justice, and of the enlightened age in 'which we live." In stipulating, there fore, by the same Treaty for its continuance, nay'for its resumption, he stood self •condemned, unless it can be maintained that those sacred principles might allowably be superseded in the breast of a Christian Monarch, by reasons of State or favonr , towardchis colonial friends. Perhaps the Treaty, in this respect, was with out a precedent on earth. I can recollect at least no prior instance of an Act of State by which a na tion publicly 'stigmatised a given practice as se pugnent to moral obligation, and at the same time avowed its determination to relapse into, ad here to it. Nor can I conceive any thing more derogatory to the honour of God ; or more likely to excite his indignation. So it .was, however, that France thus acted under her lawful So vereign, and that she pertinacipsly refused at Vienna, as before at Paris, to renounce the Slave Trade in less than five years. Her refus al, in all probability, chiefly frustrated our efforts to obtain at that time a general abolition ; and if the • most• credible intormation may be trust ed, she was actually preparing a new expedition against St. Domingo when Buonaparte landed from Elba. The fairest way perhaps of estimating the es,' deuce of a Providential retribution in the events that followed, is to carry back our views to the state of France and of ,Europe in the month of February 1815, when the negociations on the Slave Trade at Vienna ended, and the obduracy of the French Government was finally ascertained ; and so ask ourselves what human probability there then was that Hayti would be again rescuer.? trom invasion, and that new calamities to the King of France and his people were near at hand. Had any man, relying on such views as are developed in these papers, or endued with a prophetic spirit, ventured to say, " France will soon again be de luged with blood : Louis XVIII. will be driven front the Throne of his ancestors, and the Usurper be seated upon it. France, instead of carrying again invasion, and an exterminatory sword into Hayti, will soon feel once more a foreign sword in her own bowels, and will be a second time con quered. Instead of ravaging the borders of Africa for five years, as she impiously proposes, she wiil be driaen to consent that foreign armies shall for the same period occupy her own." The author of such predictions would have been accused not only of presumption, but of extrava gance and madness. He might, however, with equal truth have added still stranger thiugs.— " These new calamities of France," he might have said, " shall only cease with her solemn submission to Heaven, by, what :be has just refused, an immediate renunciation of the Slave Trade. Nevertheless Louis XVI 11. as he has re fused that sacrifice, shall not now have the grace of making it. He shall only have to ratify in that respect the act of the Usurper. The same impious hand that restored this Temple of Mam mon shall prostrate it again. He shall have the shame of signing his recantation in order to pro pitiate the people he most hates. Yet he riot so escape the punishment die to his crimes. The spirit of Toussaint, and the Genius of Africa, shall have further and exacter ven geance. Napoleon shall have the fate of that oppressed hero without his glory. Like him he shall fall into the hands of his enemies ; like him he shall be carried prisoner by a long voyage to a distant land, and an interminable exile ; like him he shall, be stripped of power, divided for ever from his wife and child, his brethren and friends; cut off from all communication with his native lend and the companions of his former greatness, and doomed to languish in hopeless seclusion and captivity for the rest of his miserable days. He shall be caged upon a rock, between the two continents of Africa and America, in the path way of the Slave Trade ; like a felon gibbetted on the heath which was the theatre of his crimes." Strange, wonderfully strange and incredible, though all this would have appeared on the Bth of February, 1815, when the Declaration of Vienna closed the deliberations on the Slave Trade, it was all with signal rapidity accomplish ed. On the 26th of the same month Bfionaparte sailed from Elba, on the Ist of March he landed in France, and in less titan forty days after XVIII. had sealed his adherence to the 51,8,,1d-' Trade he lost his Throne. The Use r p er hardly re-ascended it, when he _published' b Decree, declaring the immediate abolitiona t,b4 commerce ; and, as if to mark more conSP'47): welly the design of Providence in this New ge:,..11 lution, it was the single legislative purpose W"6"(k. he accomplished : the only act of his last u sorP % authority, which has been ratified, and pa§seCi of a permanent law into the civil institutions France. He reigned afterwards' onlY I ° ll l enough to chastiie the French people, who ' too generally partaken of, and approved, t art ° le duracy of their Government ; and to aug ment t 1 glory glory of their enemies, especially:of tho se wb° ; 7 o laboured most zealously to reclaim- them, and put an end to the general provocation of Slave Trade. c of Thus strikingly in all its parts, has i be France, like those of the other colonising nat'°":. fallen in with and confirmed the hypothesis which harmonises so well with the Divine Attri buted ' and explains in a way so satisfactory to a Pi°;° mind the astonishing events of the age. Th e ' ll. w i fidel may scoff at such views ; but by th ose W l ' believe in a superintending Providence , they not be rejected without serious examination, 114 examined, I trust, without producing a Pi..tt t general persuasion that they are rationa l and P is c That they have been overlooked, in pars a t least, by many pious inquirers, is no a rgum en t) , against their truth. Much less should they discredited because the extraordinary events b u e, the age have. not thus been construed by I , i to , actors them, or, in general, by the iund' e "' ll r , spectators ; for it has been a common character istic of the works of Divine Providence , at test s , by Revelation as such, that they have bee" regarded, and their providential character di! lieven during their progress, however conspire,. ons the hand of God in them has afterwards villa, come.—" Behold ye despisers, and wonder 9 A, perish ; for I work a work in your daysea which ye shall in no wise believe, though "" • declare it unto you." (To be continued.) • • A c t Where an assemblage of talent and exp eri B e ss is concentrated in one line of practice, a °lot must attend their application, not to be- f° )vats', elsewhere. This has been evinced in th e blishment of the Medical Board at chow ct , Blacktriars-road, and at -Woo4sl7,ere House, Woodstock-street, Oxford-street, cures are every day performed in cases MQpd have baffled the skill of eminent professors' excited their astonishment. d el The Medical Board have particularly otte och to those consequences of a certain disease, c o rs . entails the most distressing debilities, l O a o lio hinges the constitution of both sexes. 14/0011. remove the effects of those symptoms a risittg juvenile indiscretion, from irregular from a long - residence in warm climates"cobsti‘ dcscription they beg particularly to no tice 3ios 1 0 , nate eruptions in the skin, sore throat , P i . OW the bead and limbs, frequently mistak en f°' • matism, strictures, fistulas, scrophula, ef e ' Messrs COOPER and Co. after forty Ye', ll tin. tice in various Hospitals, are consulted s' io ht stock-street, oxford- street, daily, froal, e , oc lot te : eight"; and at the Medical Board, ( ';',. 5 ..at" House, Great Charlotte-street, Blackfr'",oin' precisely from twelve until eight in the ec inc oil le ' Mechanics, and persons of moderate f ' hoe" have advice grAtis, if they attend at coo° wore namely, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sundldell inns, until one o'clock, and every evelija' lif! six to eight. fo r 1 0 2,1 * * A side door, and private rooms COAL MARKI...T, OCToar:4o' oce : o b Ships at Market. Ships sold. g,l to 4bi. P i' 10 Newcastle, 45 "5' 15 ' ok 41s 6 "' •••• 4 ' 2 Sunderland (2.. ••• .. • 1 to 0 , • 1 Cohn 1 . .. ..•... 34 5• 0 ` ' ef I° ' 1 Canuell t •••• ••• 5 0 s• N. P ....... P e IiIII:f 11. i r e rrsee , On Tuesday morning, Mrs. Farmer, at the ' nington-common, of a daughter. S W MARE. I ED. r ead ne ilP f I'll g Yesterday, Mr. Francis Graham Moon, . 3 ~., chal ,6 street, to Ann, eldest daughter of the late 30111. Esq. of _ Kensington.___._ On the. 20th inst. at Bath, in the 190 year ? „ o el W A , e. of i : DIEM f 1115 g.e''.ll;ll 1 1 : ,, t e , s c , t I l l , i e n g e lN e l , : ( c c x 4 'a t : o i s l i f l o t i i : l i:t e n d I G )y e George Butler, I burstinglutle of a st i t : d i ( t ) ::: 4 t -c°' ' ' l' t i tf 'Pdi'r field, On t s h e : l, 2 ' G s Ili inst, ant ofL Ledger's, r l ' a s t , e aft er a fortnight's illness, Nirs. Stanlio ' '''''''' of the pt, WI _... CV t, Stanhope, liei t i l: : : 6 i 4. : te lli : e sidi3a;:eyl 7 l ,a, : t r ' ‘ h .l ' l l ,, i )at ti ftli s i,i t e,,l iiss, a , cla t i:L l : t eig i .i s t. e l , t r : 4 ;i: E, s i e sa , q3. S . t o - . iTillun:diaes:sfl°3l'll4:tit: ~ % Yesterday, in Cainden-strect , I\l l ' idiese 1 , wife ° off Ile v . Juli a II arr i s , no w of tI i Hear (+' ° . 'd rsiirciet)')eli:i4ill Bucks. on PROVINCIAL II NIARRIAGF, ----- Cleaver, to Mary, S ASV ''''):‘ClP. f 01 0 MA 11111 EP. On the 16th inst. at Llang-adach, Csrata-11'fo. Njart:/;1I, Williams Gwynne Hughes, Esq. Of Treg H ' , vrvs e P t° Juliana, youngest daughter of the late Morga ( the r 4), Inclegsit'ttlaantl-210itlesii:ONE. ojltrb.alnilP"t'°':inaiijiii).:,l,,e°:l: Esq. of Glansevin, acedgreat Crand.daugbter eosci;tll° I,ool'lrecf Loud Viscoant HerefoLdg( - Wither of the rr DI F.l). Leedtt ,J 0.,?. - i o On Tuesday last, at the Harehills, near _,,ioc,-..„er ~, Mr Griffith IVright. He had attained the, 71,,,iptit", 74 and was perhaps the oldest prorieter o r blis beti I( t . i i;i l „7„. this Itingdom,if not in the world, having (-' , 5 3 " 1 , 5 befo r i e frut!„;" Leeds' Intellig - encir, A. P. ly, 1 , nine 1,„ rettreucooci're sent Majesty's accession to the throne• T by the. fe; V i or siness more than :15 years since. Chee:':.is.ate.l,l,otullitle nest of a long and well spent public tend; ~,,- l)l' ' .. 2 10 4 r tamed all his faculties till the day p :• - ii iet l 3 ., , . ,it, when an universal paralysis suddenl, 0' I 1, i r' c ? ?Jr. r - ° out pain, closed his earthly existence. r.l athari'' 'clovc" , On the 18th inst. in Best-street, — O- ,,, 0 e1 , .- • Ab be!: many years Minister of the Daptist L`" of r ' 4 l; te. Chatham. l't JO' r§' I Wry. "-e d s JP • P i Oct. 21, Mrs. West, V4ifo of Nsr• , .I,or-'' PP street, Faversham ;Oct. ,22, Miss Citherill` . 5 0 0 _ el ls of Mr. John Lording, of the salad Place. ,ofr.i°' ' , Hester Elgar. 19 11)e" f i1; 0 , 5 , a l , On Monday last, Mr. Joseph 80w11.12 a' a°' P ,1 o , c r Bowman, of Lowgate, Hull. . t., ffer.o ari,t „, On Friday morning last, .lerennat lo w at 100 0 , citty of Friends, and several years a ° t be 1 flull. mcLsastresl.y, Fenton,Nlr. Titonias 7:i d al ‘ li v n o s v o d n; et c . l L er c k e ____P il : ~..:: 5 -4:1, Murray - - f ,''- 'lir -- -- --- -- ---,' ..,- if t" s, (1 . b ei T O d eft LONDON: Printed bv.l. D. CAll5'll rtib l ' s ot 1 Ormond-street, Queen-square; an d P SCRIPPS, of No. 7, South Wit,lortiserl' °dice, No. 112, Strand ; ss•herg it.„4,,foisci, Letters, ay., (post.vaid) mu st bc au' A N hoYAI SITI tftek -3 , the 81, the me 4C qUain ttewitr( N. 4. 411 :11 s B ftti t t 11(.4, 1'1 4 " 41 , 1 ' 1 Iq4v,i